330 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



And so on, puffing and chatting away, friendly, 

 garrulous, admirably hopeful. 



At the next settlement, called Neighbors, really 

 good farms began, with cheerful horses and men, 

 big haystacks, and a general air of something going 

 on. The well-fenced fields showed excellent crops of 

 alfalfa, cotton, and milo-maize. The difference be- 

 tween this locality and the one I had just left turns 

 wholly on the question of water, the very blood of 

 life to desert soil. Teams became more numerous, 

 then occasional buggies with women and children. 

 Passing a prosperous looking ranch I caught the 

 sound of a harmonium. Some one was playing 

 "Home, Sweet Home." 



We were soon entering the town of Blythe, 

 which I found to consist of a dozen good stores, a 

 neat little bank, hotel, moving-picture theatre, and 

 so forth, and a few score of modest dwellings. But 

 again I rebelled at the slovenliness that makes our 

 new Western cities so deplorable. One picks out the 

 redeeming features eagerly enough, every tasteful 

 building, every bit of lawn, every decent job of 

 fencing: but these only give contrast to the general 

 vileness. One would think effort had been made, 

 real ingenuity called in, to achieve this hideous re- 

 sult. 



Blythe has no livery-stable, but I found make- 

 shift quarters for Kaweah at a corral surrounded by 

 dirty tents and mud-and-pole hovels, and put up 

 for a day or two while I attended to matters of busi- 

 ness. The opening of a new pool-room was to be cel- 

 ebrated that night and the next, with a dance given 



